Blog: Aspen Ideas Festival -- Accelerating #Cures2015

Press Release

By Unknown

This past week, Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) took a #Roadtrip4Cures to meet with health leaders in DeGette's home state of Colorado. During their trip they participated in a panel discussion on the 21st Century Cures Act at the Aspen Ideas Festival: Spotlight Health.

Aspen Ideas writes: "This is a golden age for biomedical research, with novel technologies and groundbreaking science revealing new pathways to diagnose, treat, prevent, or cure disease. Yet too many patients still lack lifesaving therapies. Last year, the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce launched the bipartisan 21st Century Cures initiative to consider opportunities to transform biopharmaceutical research and development. Now under review in Congress, the 21st Century Cures Act, proposes new ways to streamline clinical trials, incorporate patient perspectives into decision making, and speed the science of cures to the bedside."

Highlights from the panel discussion included:

Chairman Fred Upton:
"We started in December of 2013 and we said "what is it that we can do to expedite the approval of drugs and devices, be patient centered, and really set the stage for where we want to go.' Ten thousand diseases, five hundred cures. … We need to listen. … One of the important elements in that legislation is an increase for the NIH of $10 billion over the next 5 years."

Rep. Diana DeGette:
"What we learned during all of these months of field hearings, roundtables, white papers, and hearings in the committee room, and everything else was that there was a remarkable degree of consensus among all of these communities about what the challenges and the opportunities that we have ahead of us are and why we need statutory changes. … We tried to find ways to break down barriers to doing exciting research in the 21st century. … In the end what we think this bill will do is expedite biomedical research in a safe way, in a way that protects patients, and also in a way that protects their privacy."

Former FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg:
"21st Century Cures represents a very important moment in time, the coming together across parties and coming together across components of the health care delivery system and public health system to sort of focus on how can we better ensure that we advance biomedical product innovation and better deliver on the promise of science."

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